Kay Lightfoot

I was 22 when I was diagnosed as being in ‘severe septic shock’. I was on holiday with my friends in Florida, I’d been having a great holiday, lots of water sports and adventures. I was staying with a friend who lived there, and after getting back from a road trip started to feel sleepy for the next couple of days, I had a constant cramp in my stomach that I thought nothing of.

One day we went to a water park, still with this cramp in my stomach. As the day went on, I started feeling really funny. I was struggling to walk up stairs without stopping every couple of steps, I started feeling really woozy and confused. My friend and I thought it was dehydration and lack of food, so she went and got me some while I laid on a bench bewildered by what I was feeling. I ate the food and had the drink and let my friend wander of to go on a few more rides while I rested. While she was gone, I began to feel like I was dying. It was the worst feeling in the world. My body did not feel right. I wanted to curl up and go to sleep.

I proceeded to throw up the food and drink I had eaten and collapsed onto the floor, and asked a passing stranger to get help for my ASAP. She did, and my friend came back baffled as to what was going on. I was checked out by the first aid guy who said my BP was low, but nothing to worry about because I’m tall and slim. So suggested we head home. We tried to do this, we were waiting for a taxi by the front of the park, and I collapsed again, spewing into a bin (strangers thought I was drunk) and feeling that need to lay down. I convinced my friend I just needed to go home, until this happened a third time, worse than any other. I knew I was seriously ill.

First aid man came back and forced me ( in the nicest possible way) into a wheel chair and into the office where by BP had dropped to 70/30 majorly from earlier that day. I was trying to sleep on the bed in the first aid room, when everything went blank for around 10 seconds and I came to with the first aid man hovering above me shouting my name. I’d had a seizure. The ambulance team were now ready to take me. I’d never heard of sepsis before, but it nearly killed me, as I was told numerous times in my week-long stay in hospital. It was the scariest time of my life. If it weren’t for the amazing staff at that water park, the brilliant ambulance and hospital team and my best friend, I would be dead. It is so tempting to just shrug these symptoms off at first, but you’re body is trying to tell you something. In hospital my kidneys and livers had swollen and my organs were a couple of hours away from failing. I’m lucky I’m here to tell this story.